Dowbrigade

Over
the years, I have tried a variety of brushoff techniques with those pesky
telemarketers. For a long while I used five simple syllables: "No hablo
Ingles", but then the Spanish-language calls started coming in as well.
Abusive venting can be a therapuetic outlet for some, but I just don’t
feel comfortable using that kind of language on the phone, afraid perhaps,
after all these
years, that my parents are listening in on another extension.

Sometimes I use lame-ohs like "I’m just housesitting" or "they moved
away." For a long time I kept a little tape recorder with the 60-second
scream from Pink Floyd’s “Careful With That Axe Eugene” looping around over and over next to the phone.
Nowadays, when I am in a bad mood or feeling rude I just hang up, but
lately I have
been
having
a
lot of
success
with
the
following
line:

"Gee, I’m kinda busy right now, but if you don’t mind giving me your
home phone number I would be happy to call you back sometime when you
aren’t
at
work and I am." I must’ve used that over a hundred times so far, and
only two of the telemetiches gave me their "home" numbers – the rest
hurriedly hung up, suspecting madness or some sort of reverse sting.
Both numbers, of course, were fake.

The Great Dave Barry has gone me one better.  He printed the home
and office numbers of several major telemarketers, not coincidentally
those who had been calling his home, in his column
of August 31, which
appears in hundreds of papers.  Thats when things got interesting.

Dave Barry’s Aug 31 column

article from AP about the furor since